


the heart does not

by yuma (yuma_writes)



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Not Beta Read, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-22 23:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4854887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuma_writes/pseuds/yuma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's something Abbie doesn't think about. Because there's so much of it. But a certain Englishman trapped in the future begs to differ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	the heart does not

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: first season only
> 
> Note: this ficlet was a Word Battle response. The prompt for this fandom was "plumbing". (pauses) I know, right? LOL.
> 
> Warning: not betaed, beware of dangling modifiers, misplaced prepositions and incorrect verb tenses. Don't run with scissors.

_"My hand trembles, but my heart does not."  
\--Stephen Hopkins, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776_

 

She's still trying to figure out what the hell happened.

One minute, she was a top pick on her way to Quantico. 

The next, she became some Biblical witness to a possible Apocalypse. Suddenly without her partner (alone). Saw a guy did the grossest 180 _(literally)_ in her entire life. And oh yeah.

Abbie was now docent of the twenty first century for some guy who sounded like an extra for Downton Abbey. Give or take a century or two.

Abbie sat at her desk, warily eying Captain Irving's firmly shut door. The skeptic (but who can blame him, really) had the dubious honor this morning explaining to Crane why the toilet was not a chamber pot and _no, Crane, we no longer need to toss out our excre –Mills!_

Inwardly cringing at the memory, Abbie hoped this time, Crane's "Pardon me, Leftenant, while I make use of your privy" was uneventful. She had a hell of a time before trying to explain how wooden pipes were a thing of the past; running water went everywhere thanks to modern underground plumbing. But it was hard to stay annoyed at a guy who kept making delighted and amazed sounds just from turning the faucet on and off. 

Still, Abbie was getting tired of trying to explain how the waterworks function. How would she know? You turn on the water. You press a lever. You flush; it goes...somewhere. (sea? space? _New Jersey_?) You drink water from a plastic bottle. But only if it has a picture of a mountain on it because those taste the freshest. _Everything else_ , she had advised, _you Google._

And _that_ was another long conversation. _She_ needed water from a damn plastic bottle after that impromptu lecture.

Abbie idly browsed through YouTube, bookmarking videos that were more educational than raunchy. At least Crane would appreciate the campy videos whoever sad person posted up in the past. Stuff like "How to use a gas stove" and "The history of elevators" didn't normally get a lot of likes. 

While debating the entertainment value of including a [ 'Prancerise'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-50GjySwew) video in Crane's curriculum, Abbie heard a distant argument down the hall. She frowned, looking up. She shot out of her seat when strains of Crane's bass voice drifted over like far away thunder. It sounded like he was demanding satisfaction and some meeting at dawn.

"Screw dawn! Let's have it out right now!" 

Shit, it was that asshole, Sanders. Abbie found herself running the last few feet. She slid in-between the two men and was promptly nudged behind Crane.

Abbie fumed at his broad back. Crane and his archaic sense of chivalry. She hasn't decided yet if it was cute or downright annoying.

"Okay, what's going on?" Abbie demanded from behind a six foot two Englishman. It was no easy feat; she tippy toed and raised her voice to be heard.

Eighteenth century manners and her bellowing by his ear got Crane's full attention. He glared at Sanders and drew himself up and shit, how did he make himself _taller_ while the rest of mere mortals have to rely on heels?

"This gentleman," Crane said heatedly, "is wasting a valuable resource."

Huh?

Sanders rolled his eyes. "So I left the water running. Geez, be glad I washed my hands after I took a piss, all right?"

Abbie sighed to herself. Great.

"No matter how short in time you find yourself to be, sir, one should not brazenly waste—"

"Christ, look, it was only—"

"Do _not_ use His name in vain."

"Get over it, Crane. It was just one running faucet. You shut it off yourself so no big deal, all right? Go hug a tree or something."

"Why on earth would I seek out to embrace—"

"Enough!" Abbie barked. She elbowed Crane back. "Crisis over, the world's still spinning, Crane, it's not a big deal."

The look on Crane's face said otherwise. Abbie caught herself before she took a step back.

"Many a good men died on the battlefield longing for a mere drop of water. They couldn't even cry, they were so parched," Crane said low. "It is not, by all means, Miss Mills, 'not a big deal'."

Abbie blinked after Crane as he stalked off, the tails of his dark blue coat whipping out like bat wings.

"I got this, Mills." Captain Irving's weary voice floated over. At Abbie's look, his face cracked to form a small smile of sorts.

"What? They didn't make me captain just for my good looks." Irving nodded curtly to Sanders and walked through the small crowd that had gathered minutes before. And like with Crane, the crowd wordlessly parted to make way for Irving's precise stride. A military stride, Abbie realized. Irving walked like a man who balanced on a line between civility and the brutality of war. 

Sanders scratched his five o'clock shadow, looking cowed. He shifted from foot to foot.

"So, like, was Crane in Afghanistan or Iraq or something?"

"Or something," Abbie muttered. She tracked Irving, a soldier of modern war going after a soldier of old.

 

The armory sounded hollow when she entered, her boots clacking on marble. No one used stone these days, not like the way they did in the past. The sound was unfamiliar to her ears, yet Abbie somehow knew it's the same sound one would get walking through a mausoleum.

Abbie shivered.

"Crane?" Abbie called out hesitantly. "You in here?"

Old pipes rattled as water roared through ancient plumbing up to the modern floors above the armory. It was loud, the rattling of bones that almost drowned out Crane's subdued "I am over here, Leftenant." 

Between two short bookcases, Crane sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by dusty tomes of colonial maps. 

"You okay?" Abbie asked. She slowed her approach, stopping by the start of the shelves. 

"Your captain is a wise man," Crane offered. He bowed his head to her. "My apologies for my outburst. It was...disproportional." 

Abbie sighed to herself. Hell, so was lots of reactions from lots of guys with tanned faces, shaky hands and still smelling like the desert. Only she doubted Crane's time had a name for what the guys go through today. In Crane's time, there weren't enough of them left to be called veterans.

"Sanders said he was sorry he was a jerk," Abbie said instead. "And Getz said whenever you want, there's a beer waiting for you in Pony's Bar. He meets up with a bunch of guys from his old platoon every Friday so if you ever want to talk..." Abbie suspected, though, Crane would refuse. Politely, of course.

Crane acknowledged with a dip of his head but said nothing. He sighed and looked about him at the maps.

"If only," Crane murmured. "Had we had what you all possess so readily today, we need not have lost so many."

Abbie wished Crane wouldn't keep referring to himself as 'we' like he was someone else, already in the past, dead and buried and mentioned only in history books. She wished he would stop lumping himself with others as if he wasn't really here.

"Tell me about them."

Crane lifted dark eyes at her. 

"About who you lost," Abbie said. "So you can get them back." She shrugged. "Talking helps. Or so I hear." 

"Oh, and this is from Sanders." Unsure of how it would be received, Abbie slowly lifted up her cup carrier: four cups of pure, clean water. And a bag of doughnut holes from her because why not; she'll burn off the calories chasing after some headless horseman dude later.

Crane stared at her for a long moment. Then, he tipped his head again, as elegant as one of those kooky bows she can't get him out of the habit of.

"I would be honored to tell you the glories of my comrades, Miss Miles."

Smiling, Abbie dropped down on a clean spot on the floor. She slid a paper cup of water over and settled in for a long night on a cold floor, but that's okay. She sat with her back to a bookcase that possibly housed all of Crane's past and readied herself for a few hours.

Crane delicately cleared his throat. A shy but hopeful smile flitted across his face.

"Does that bag perhaps contain one filled with that wondrous jam?"

Abbie chuckled as she passed the bag of the jelly-filled doughnut holes to Crane.

**Author's Note:**

> This was sitting in my drive for about a little over a year. Heck, I'm going to put it out there. (eep) I blame Brate for this. And I meant New Jersey no offense. Abbie was merely channeling Peter Venkman. (lol)
> 
> Feedback is like cookies. I _like_ cookies!


End file.
